Humanities

At West Moors Middle School, Humanities, or Integrated Learning as it’s known in KS2, encompasses the study of history and geography. In Key Stage 2, children receive two lessons of Integrated Learning per week. These are usually topic based covering a wide range of themes which are specific to one of the humanities subject areas, but also incorporate the development of key literacy and numeracy skills.

In Key Stage 3 history, geography and RE are studied as separate subjects to provide students with a clearer view of the aspects of the individual subjects.

History is all about people, cultures and places of the past and how we know about them. Students consider how the past influences the present, what past societies were like, how these societies organised their politics, and what beliefs and cultures influenced people’s actions. In history, pupils find evidence, weigh it up and reach their own conclusions. To do this they need to be able to research, sift through evidence, and argue for their point of view.

Geography provokes and answers questions about the natural and human world, using different scales of inquiry to help students to do this, and it also helps them to view people, places and environments from different perspectives. It develops knowledge of places and environments throughout the world, an understanding of maps and a range of investigative and problem-solving skills, both inside and outside the classroom.